Yes, Marissa......there really is a Santa Claus, and he wants to hear from you

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT), Mark Langlois THE NEWS-TIMES

Published 1:00 am, Saturday, November 20, 2004

The jury is out on Santa Claus, but Ric Meyers is working hard to sway the vote.

At the Danbury Fair mall Thursday, Santa smiled at Stefano Moglin, 2. Stefano dug deep into his stroller. Santa played peek-a-boo. After a few minutes of rejection, Santa acted sad. But Stefano was having none of Santa's act. He wouldn't unwrap his arms from his stroller. No way was he going to sit on anybody's lap. It didn't matter how much Santa smiled and waved at him.

But Stefano's sister Gianna, 4, couldn't have been happier having her photo shot with the big red man.

"I liked him a lot," Gianna said. "I want a castle and a house."

This was the first time that Meyers, 51, filled in as Santa's helper. But he has had experience playing other mythical people. For instance, he is the king at Medieval Times, a nightly Renaissance dinner with knights and jousting in Lyndhurst, N.J.

The work was good practice for his mall appearance.

"A boy asked me if I was really the king, and I said, 'In here I am,' " Meyers got a similar question Friday.

"Are you the real Santa?" a boy asked.

Santa responded, "What's your name?"

The tyke said, "Jimmy."

So Santa asked, "Are you the real Jimmy?"

Santa works three three-hour shifts a day, every day from Nov. 13 to Dec. 24. His one day off is Thanksgiving.

"I'm trying to give Santa a human side. Sure we have the elves and the reindeer. That's the magic side, but Santa is also a person," Santa said. "It's good to be king, but it's great to be Santa."

Meyers writes for a living, and is a columnist for
Inside Kung-Fu magazine
. He is a specialist in comic books, super-hero films, and Asian cult cinema. He gets tired, he said, of sitting and typing all day long, and that leads him into jobs like Santa and the king.

"It's a challenge to get the children to open up. There's a moment when they first see you, and they either open up like a flower or crumple like a piece of paper. That's heart-breaking," Santa said. "It's something we're working on. We're learning as we go."